Local authorities in Wales are still owed more than £80m in council tax arrears, newly published figures have shown

Local authorities in Wales are still owed more than £80m in council tax arrears, newly published figures have shown.

But the figure of £82.6m at March 31 is down from £85.3m last year – partly because councils managed to collect more of the current year’s bills (97%, up from 96.7%).

But it is also because they appear to have made a dent in their arrears (down from £47.5m total outstanding in 2012/13 to £46.8m in 2013/14).

The amount of previous years’ arrears collected was up from £28.5m in 2012/13 to £29.9m in 2013/14. Amounts written off also fell from £6.2m in 2012/13 to £6m in 2013/14.

There are considerable variations between local authorities.

Cardiff is owed the most at £10.5m but this is down 15% from last year.

Monmouthshire has seen the biggest percentage decrease in the amount of money outstanding, with the figure coming down by 18.7% in a year.

Pembrokeshire (up 15.4%) and Carmarthenshire (up 10.8%) have seen the biggest increases in total arrears over the past financial years.

Pembrokeshire recorded the highest in-year collection rate at 97.9% whilst Newport recorded the lowest at 95.7%

Wrexham and Monmouthshire, up 0.7 percentage points, saw the biggest improvements in the percentage of in-year council tax collected in 2013/14 compared to 2012/13.

The biggest fall was in Denbighshire, which was down 0.3 percentage points.

Councils set an assumed collection rate, on which they base their budgeting. Torfaen (2.4 percentage points higher than expected) and Blaenau Gwent (2.2 percentage points higher than expected) were the best performers while Conwy (1.7 percentage points lower) and Wrexham and Cardiff (1.4 percentage points lower) under performed, possibly causing budgeting problems if they don’t manage to claw back the money elsewhere.

The shortfall in Cardiff, for example, is £1.9m.

Asked to explain its increase in arrears, a spokeswoman for Pembrokeshire County Council said: “The statistics show that Pembrokeshire has the highest increase in prior year debits in Wales.

“The net effect is £238,000.

“The council’s arrears were the second lowest in Wales and it was inevitable that an increase of this particular amount would appear statistically significant.

“These arrears relate to backdated council tax adjustments spanning a number of years and we are aware that many affected taxpayers are appealing against the adjustments and withholding council tax payments in protest.

“These will be rigorously pursued until collected.

“It should be noted that in respect of 2013/14, once again our council tax collection rate remains the highest in Wales.”

Phil Murphy, Mommouthshire’s Cabinet member for finance said: “During the past 12 months we have invested further resources in the area of recovering council tax.

“We hope that this improvement will continue.

“Also, Monmouthshire’s economy is among the most resilient in Wales and this may be a factor which contributes to an increase in the amount of council tax collected.”

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